Death of a Thousand Pecks
by InspirationandStrife
Summary: Lamora leads the Gentlemen Bastards on their first grand heist to pull off ten thousand crowns from Lady De Marre.Everything goes well if you read the books they get their money and Sabetha runs away later.But what about the pigeons?


**grrr ive been distracted from my usual xmen evolution updates because this idea nagged at me ever since the gentlemen bastards invaded my life! damn you, bastards! =D**

**This is the work of a fan's imagination of what _could have_ happened to the Gentlemen Bastards on their first grand heist to rob the filthy rich. Well, some facts remain true to the original books, like in LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA they're known to have snuck away with ten thousand crowns from a De Marre - thats their first theft if im not wrong! Then in RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES Jean taunted Locke about getting 'pecked to bloody shreds' by a bunch of pigeons. im not sure if Sabetha was around during that time, but i decided to add the completely unknown character in! damn, i need to get THE REPUBLIC OF THIEVES!!**

**Hahaha yeah i just picked up the first book. it was like fate! some fella had slotted the book in the wrong shelf when i was looking for some other book at the library. it was sitting next to the book i wanted. guess what? im not staying up at night to read the book i intended to read. =D and i just bought the second!! there was a whole shelf full of the books. sigh. thats the saddest sight ive ever seen...**

**Did you know Gentlemen Bastards is gonna be a movie soon? i was webbing and found Warner Brothers (can u imagine bugs bunny sitting next to burly jean tannen?) had just bought the movie rights! the only thing im freaked out about is the guy chosen to produce it had produced THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE. 0_0 i dont want locke's head turning 360'!! confirms it. yea its a movie gossip sit but they're quite accurate i think.**

**omg... who do you guys want to portray locke lamora? or jean tannen? or the lovely sanza twins!! =D wheee love the twins! oh and dont forget bug! poor bug... hmmm sabetha... hmmm! al pacino could play barsavi i think, he's got the GODFATHER look. yikes!**

**ooopa! seems ive ranted too long! eh hahaha enjoy! =D its my first fanfic for these guys so, MERCY!**

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****Death of a Thousand Pecks**

Falselight had ceased, enveloping the grand mansion and its peculiar solo tower in utter darkness. The boys had joked among themselves years ago that the architect who designed the wealthy estate must have had something against Donã Rosalina De Marre. Unable to physically flash the bird at a person of nobility, the architect seemed to have built her royal home in the shape of it. The tower was tall and wide and actually resembled a man's middle finger with the shorter estate roofs at its sides, especially when viewed at such an hour as the present.

The Hangman's Wind blew the faint stench of swampland but the Gentlemen Bastards did not so much as wrinkle their noses at the smell when it blew into the tower room. They were on a mission. Or more precisely, on the last phase of their mission. A mission worth ten thousand full crowns. Their first in what Locke Lamora hoped would be many more to come. Thin ropes made from an especially strong material was coiled around their waists under their cloaks. Only Jean and Bug were absent.

"That's all of it?" whispered Calo, inching away from the oddments balanced about the room.

"Yes." Locke locked up the miniature cabinet with the same pick he used to unlock it.

In a period shorter than it took for them to climb in through the open window, the foursome had climbed out and were in position to abseil down the sheer tower.

"Shush!" murmured Sabetha, throwing a gripping hand on her leader.

A queer tapping and cooing sound seemed to echo off the stone walls. For a moment, the Gentlemen Bastards thought they were finally caught in their act. Then the noise stopped.

Locke thought for a moment of dreadful silence as they swung in the breeze. His hands spoke in the fuzzy light of clouded moons. _Coming from roof._

_Impossible, _replied Sabetha, _Jean and Galdo took guards out_. Jean was on the ground below them, taking the place of the two guards by the base of the tower, who were probably trussed up like drugged chickens in an unknown corner. Bug was with him posing as the guards' nightly errand boy.

_High drop_, noted Galdo.

_Someone should check_, Calo suggested.

A series of poking ensured between the young men until Sabetha growled, "I'll do it. Give me the crossbow, Locke. Cowards."

"Be careful." he said. She glanced at his lean face blurred by the night, and nodded.

With silent stepping and guile honed over years of training in her adolescence days, the lone woman in the group made her way up the tower as the men dangled beneath her. She extracted the spare nails she had brought as a precaution and pushed a couple into the gaps in the wall to reach the roof. She twirled her rope around the heads of the nails for safety's sake despite her hate for ropes.

_Kill if necessary_, Locke signalled to the Sanzas as she approached the tiles, who nodded in keen reply.

Sabetha clutched the crossbow in her right as her left hauled her upward. She closed her eyes. Her heart throbbed nervously at the possibilities that lay above her. Without a second hesitation, she thrust her hand and head onto the level of the roof, readily aiming at the first head she encountered.

However, the head was smaller than her arrowhead with a neck as long as her thumb. She blinked in surprise. Around that head, other heads rose like an army from their previously crouched positions. She froze. The long nub closest to her started twitching, bending from side to side in rapid, quirky jerks. Then the heart-shaped form began to approach her with a _tap-tap-tap_ of its little feet. It cooed in her face.

She clicked her tongue at herself for getting spooked like a child. "It's a bloody pigeon!" she hissed to her companions below.

They either could not hear her, or they did not believe her, the latter reason annoying her further. "What?" asked Locke.

"It's a bunch of fucking birds!" she said a bit louder. The trio nodded. Far lower, she could make out Jean glancing up at them.

She slowly lowered her crossbow, not wanting to give the birds any cause for alarm. One wrong move and they would –

"Shit!" she gasped as one of the nails gave away and she slipped a few feet closer to death, painfully jerking to a halt. As she dangled in midair she was suddenly very, very aware of heights.

Her unexpected movement sent that one bird fluttering and Sabetha winced as she heard the flapping crescendo. One. Three. Then ten. Twenty. Forty. She lost count as the individual forms merged into a looming shadow of noisy, panicked swarm of pigeons.

"What the hell?" coughed one of the twins.

_Yes._ Sabetha reprimanded herself. _Our cover, blown._

"Let's get off this gods-damned tower. Now!" hissed Locke.

All four simultaneously turned their eyes downward to make sure they were not screwing their climb. None expected the sleep-deprived legion of flying poultry to turn on them.

Calo received the first attack. "Aiks!" He jerked to a halt as beaks jibbed a series of ruthless pecks into his back.

Galdo sniggered, "Bleeding to death yet? Ow! Hey, what's –!" He bit his tongue to stop himself from shouting at his feathery attackers as he rubbed his nose and then his arse. Before long he was surrounded by angry birds hell-bent on punishing him. He swatted at them in vain and glanced to his right.

Locke was swinging his legs at the birds, managing to distract them rather than actually kick any of them away. Then a shadow descended upon the leader of this thieving expedition. With a gasping cry and a hoarse groan, he managed to catch himself and his uninvited hitchhiker before they both plummeted to their ends. Pigeons dived at the opportunity to bombard him with their beaks.

"Sabetha!" he wheezed. "You have...togetoffme!"

"Can't." she replied, almost calmly, despite the fact that both of her last-minute planted nails had betrayed her. Nonetheless she clung onto him as much as her life mattered. After much shifting about his body, she found security in a very compromising position.

"Oh, sweet Thirteenth...!" He moaned again.

"Not a good time, Locke."

"That's not it..." he trailed off with another groan and fidgeted with the loop of rope strangling his leg. Locke was paying the price for their lives with the most precious part of his male anatomy. Sabetha tightened her grip around him.

Beside her, Galdo had swung his leg into his brother's face and Calo was attempting to return the favour. The noise they were making were drowned by the birds' enraged battle cries, but it helped little.

"Shut up!" she said as capably loud as she allowed herself.

"Grow a cock and you'll know what it feels like!" Locke retorted abruptly.

She scowled in the darkness. "I'm not talking to you!"

On ground level, Jean could hear nothing beyond the crazy bird calls and could see nothing beyond the cloud of black and grey and the occasional white dots. But his imagination took him places and he choked in restrained laughter. "Dear Father Chains. Of all things you trained us for, you forgot the terror of the skies. Pigeons: The End of the Gentlemen Bastards."

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**ahhh! so you like? you savvy? or you hate me? REVIEW!**


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